I have a service which has been logging for over a half year somewhere ( probably from coinmarketcap, all known cryptocurrencies). I thought it was updated every 15 minutes
Email me (see profile) and i'll check it out do send it to you.
There is https://www.kaiko.com/, they collect and sell bid/ask and orderbook data for most of the exchanges that are active now or were active in past.
Long term plans of IOTA at least are to provide a trustless currency. Right now it has a centralized coordinator which is a neverending source of issues. Hopefully it can be successfully removed in the coming years.
A somewhat related question: If I buy Bitcoin for e.g. $1.000. If the price doubles, how much can I expect to actually get out? I reckon there will be some cost-overhead for the exchange service etc. Am wondering if we're talking about 1%-5% or more like 20%?
Fees vary but your probably looking to pay minimum around ~0.25% to convert to fiat. But then you've also got other fees like withdrawing from a wallet if it's not in an exchange, and of course bank transfer fees so hard to say with certainty.
I've been using coinmate.io and at present the bid and offer are 14195 and 14221 euro or a spread of 0.18%. That's the cheapest I've found. They only do euro although they are London based. I think euro bank transfers are very cheap or free. They are also less painful to verify your passport with than coinbase. I'm not sure they are available to US residents though.
On top of the fees there's another point you have to consider: not all buyers will buy at $2k. You may be able to sell 0.1 BTC, but further buyers will buy at decreasing prices, such as $1950, or $1920 or further down. So for bigger volumes you get less than the current advertised value, which is the max you can get if you sold the minimum amount of BTC.
It's entirely possible to put $1,000 in, end up with $995 of bitcoin, sell when that doubles to $1,990 and get out $1,980.
Then you have tax :)
I am in Australia but I am able to sell for less than 1% quite easy. I think it's easier for Americans.
Also you shouldn't have to worry about slippage with bitcoin unless you're selling $1,000,000+ in one go.
If you observe the order book orders put in at limit around a volume of $100,000 will fill at the limit within minutes or on lower volume exchanges like the ones in Australia you'll be filled at the limit within a few hours at that size.
The market has significant liquidity, and unless you're selling hundreds of million in Bitcoin in a single day on one exchange, you'll be able to cash out just fine.
At this point the sane people are staying quiet. The madness is in full swing, a large number of fools are desperate to be parted from their money, and there is no point trying to stop them.
Even on Hacker News, there are no comments below saying "this is stupid". Just "how can I throw my money into this pit?" "I'm planning to build an AI algorithm to throw my money into this pit, can anyone advise?" and "if I throw my money in this pit, will it double or triple over the next week?" Good luck, guys.
Agreed, I'm considering catching a few falling knives when the inevitable crash happens, but that's about it. Looking at the Bitcoin price chart for the past week/month activates the same part of my brain that prevents me touching unrecognizable, large, red, spiky arthropods.
I stopped saying “this is stupid” when I realized that was just a shortcut to a brutal donvoting and inane comments full of either mindless greed or equally mindless ideology. This is a group of people who just know they’re too smart to be left holding the bag...
The truth is nobody knows what will happen. Meanwhile people who have a risk tolerance and budget keep making money.
The 'sane' people have missed out on some of the best returns in history. There is more there than you think, and everyone should investigate for themselves rather than having a knee-jerk reaction.
Plenty of us find value in a currency that isn't controlled by a central authority and isn't subject to inflation. We're betting others who value saving over risking their savings in the stock market will also value such a currency.
Plenty of us believe there's potential in programmable money. Certainly more potential than yet-another-social-media-platform-selling-ads.
You're welcome to dismiss Bitcoin as a bubble. You don't, however, speak for everyone who finds legitimate reasons to get involved.
Do you mean savings in a single overvalued highly volatile $100bln commodity are more sustainable than savings in the overvalued international market diversified between sectors and countries?
Yes. In my opinion the diversified international market is being propped up by coordinated actions by the worlds central banks. These markets lost more than 50% of their value in 2008. Central banks are keeping them afloat at the expense of people trying to simply save their money and not take on debt.
Janet Yellen recently expressed concern regarding the amount of debt in the economy. Apparently giving out loans at rates less than inflation causes a lot of malinvestment.
Those I know investing in Bitcoin do so because it's the only asset that exists outside the system we have today. It's the escape hatch. The volatility of course concerns us, but we believe in the fundamental ideology and in the long term believe it'll change the world. The monetary policy we have today is, quite frankly, insane.
People that purchase Bitcoin are not investing, they're gambling. It's unfortunate that this lesson wasn't learned from the very recent 2008 meltdown when many did the exact same thing with real estate. But, as you say, there's going to be a lot of mal-investment with so much cheap money floating around...
I purchased Bitcoin to escape what I believe is a financial system based on fraud. Who are you to say what my motivations are for purchasing Bitcoin? Who are you to speak for everyone else deciding to purchase Bitcoin? It takes quite an ego to presume everyone buying hasn't researched what they're buying and are just mindless sheep hoping for a payday.
I didn't claim to know your motivations. You could be entirely earnest in your motivations, but that doesn't change the facts on the ground: your "escape" is up to its elbows in the same fraudulent financial system that you decry. It's cheap money looking for easy returns that is fueling Bitcoin's rise.
So your position is that the world is awash in cheap money but Bitcoin, with its stratospheric rise, is the one thing that isn't a beneficiary of this cheap money ?
Debt is given for student loans, and education has never been more expensive.
Cheap debt is given for housing with a mere 10% down becoming quite common, and housing has never been more expensive.
Debt is being used by companies to buy back stocks, and stocks have never been more expensive.
Loans are being given at 0% interest to buy cars, and cars have never been more expensive.
Banks only loan money for the above things because they are backed by, in the banks opinion, collateral.
Which banks are loaning money to buy bitcoin? My position is the amount of debt being used to purchase bitcoin is very small relative to the rest of the economy.
The effect of cheap money on Bitcoin is a second-order effect whereby people have access to money they wouldn't otherwise have, due to additional debt. It's similar to the effect witnessed during the run-up to the 2008 meltdown where people were refinancing their homes and cashing out (on-paper) equity to use for propping up their lifestyle or buying more real estate.
The point is that it is impossible to separate Bitcoin and it's fate from the greater economy. Cheap money fuels bubbles. Last time it was real estate, this time it looks like Bitcoin.
what do you call price of BC going up 16000 fold in 6 years???
the theory was you can buy the same good with the same amount of coin regardless of what dollar is doing, did that happen in practice? no, because no one knows true value of BC because there is no central authority. I am with you on hating the central authority but inflation part didn't work out as it was planned!
This is a rediculous argument. You can’t just introduce a radically new technology and currency to the market and expect it to instantly be priced at is true value.
Give it time. Bitcoin is a populist movement. Eventually the market will find it’s correct value and volatility will decline (volatility in bitcoin has actually been declining for some time now).
what you are mentioning is deflation, the opposite of inflation. there is a limited amount of bitcoins, so indeed it is indeed deflationary, unlike most fiat, that central authority keep printing anytime they need.
Well, inflation makes the money you have in the bank loose value over time. In extreme examples you have countries like Venezuela and results are bad: people struggle to keep their buying power, companies are leaving the country, imports become way more expensive, etc.
I don't think there is a real world example of a country with deflation, so I don't know if the opposite would be true or what real consequences would be, but you can expect the opposite to happen.
> The 'sane' people have missed out on some of the best returns in history.
Are these actual returns (ie, BTC sold for fiat) or paper returns on an assumption of market depth at current spot?
Serious question. Most bitcoin enthusiasts I know are either still holding their bitcoin, or traded them for other cryptocurrencies. Few have crystallised their gains in fiat.
Everyone I know in BTC cashed out months/years ago. Makes them feel sick thinking about what they've missed out on recently. But I keep telling them they made a the same decision any rational actor would
To be clear: You can sell 100 btc today for USD. Coinbase will hold your USD (and the balance is insured). They will limit your withdraws to 10k, however. To take out more faster, you'll need to contact them and speak with a human. None of this seems unreasonable.
Nearly impossible? I don't have millions in BTC, but I do have six figures. I requested a limit increase with Coinbase and they bumped it up to 50K per day. I've had no problems withdrawing that.
>My roommate sells $40k worth every 3 months. In cash. He travels a lot now.
I seriously hope he's aware of the tax implications here. I feel like the IRS is going to be working some serious overtime after this nonsense is over.
Then don't? I fail to see why you would care so much about anonymous strangers gambling away their money. We've all heard both sides of the argument countless of times, it's not really worth reiterating "it's a bubble!" "it's not, to the moon!" in every slightly related thread.
Bitcoin has already suffered three catastrophic losses in its history. -70%/-80%/-90% in 2011, 2013, 2014. See http://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/ It has always recovered with suprising ease.
>Bitcoin has already suffered three catastrophic losses in its history. -70%/-80%/-90% in 2011, 2013, 2014. See http://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/ It has always recovered with suprising ease.
...with 10x lower market cap. This is getting out of hand, which is the problem. Complete know-nothings are getting into it now. There are ads on Reddit asking people to invest their IRA in Bitcoin. It's like the whole world has lost its' mind.
When the bottom drops out, there will be people who kill themselves, or have seriously damaged their financial lives. If people speaking as a voice of reason can convince at least some of those people to reconsider, or to at least not invest more than they can lose, I view that as a service.
Last night in a restaurant I overheard the table next to us getting excited about Bitcoin, based on the rumors of friends of friends. At the point when one quizzically said "But you only use it on the Internet? You can't see a broker in person?" we all started recalling that line about when the taxi driver starts giving you stock tips...
You recalled that line about when the taxi driver starts giving stock tips? Wow, you're so original. No one involved in bitcoin over the last 8 years has heard that one before. What other insights do you have?
I guess technically I'm one of those people whose been involved in bitcoin over the past 8 years, so the general take is that people who've been interested in bitcoin for a long time generally care about the idea of decentralizing power and allowing truly free exchange more than any particular currency, should recognize that wild speculating on bitcoin can only hurt its effectiveness in achieving these goals (and probably indicates that bitcoin itself isn't the right tool for this in the long run), and should be keeping their head down until the overvaluation passes and we can go back to valuing bitcoin/other cryptocurrencies on their actual merits, rather than because we think we can trick someone in the future into caring about them even more than we do. Thanks for the question!
You've been violating the guidelines a lot, and we have to ask you to please stop and read them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We ban accounts that keep breaking them. We also ban single-purpose accounts that abuse Hacker News with the advancement of an agenda rather than joining in on seeking to gratify one's intellectual curiosity.
That could make it worse. What you’ve described are really just derivatives, which brought down the economy
in 2008. An infinite number of bets on a finite amount of resources.
Think about it like going to the horse racetrack. Nothing stopping anyone from betting $40 billion on a few horses. Win or lose, a ton of instability will occur once they either need to come up with $40 billion to cover their losses or have someone pay them $40 billion for their winnings.
The parent comment suggests becoming a billionaire through a short. The people who bet long are likely leveraged to some extent, and if they have enough of a BTC portfolio to allow a short against them to make you a billionaire it's not unlikely that they just won't have the money to cover the bet.
We saw this prior to the Great Recession, and in the 1929 crash too. I'm ignoring the potential for a bank run to complicate matters, just sticking with counterparty risk which is easy to model.
Originally I thought it was going to be an interesting collapse to watch. But it's growing so large as to have real impacts on other parts of the economy that I'm no longer entertained by this.
Ironically, this is now the top comment in this thread. While I’m firmly in the “this is madness” camp, I disagree that there’s a lack of bitcoin skepticism on HN. There’s just also a lot of exhuberance.
The skeptic arguments are not especially hard to find or understand. People just get dollar signs and don’t want to hear it.
You should be ashamed of yourself for this comment. This is the sort of discourse I would expect to see in the comment section of an article about something tied to identity politics, not a discussion about support for a digital currency.
Is it really impossible for you to believe that someone could see value and potential in bitcoin while believing that the current price is not a an accurate representation of it's value?
Maybe they are skeptical of any community that dismisses well-measured criticism with cries of "FUD". Maybe they see bitcoin as cryptocurrency v1.0 but it would be foolish to think that the first implementation of such a technology was the best possible implementation. Maybe they are skeptical of the way many bitcoin-holders seem to prioritize their personal net worth increasing over bitcoin's use as a currency. Maybe they think the future lies in a more extensible platform like Ethereum.
Bitcoin and the blockchain are very interesting technologies full of potential but I don't understand why their proponents seem to take everything so personally.
Sorry, I don't believe proclaiming "Bitcoin is a bubble" is a "well-measured criticism" of Bitcoin. And people taking time out of their day to make such baseless claims are coming out of the woodwork lately.
When the iPod was announced, people frequently commented on purchasing apple stock, or how you can't go wrong purchasing apple. No one was calling apple a bubble when taxi drivers were making those statements.
Sorry for speaking up against people who make baseless bubble claims.
What are the tax implications of playing with Bitcoins? (disclaimer: I have no desire to do so, just wondering about it). Say I bought some BTC a couple of years ago, and now sell them at some exchange like Coinbase or Coinmate or whatever. Do these exchanges report 1099s to the IRS? If not, how will the IRS ever find out? (I'm not proposing cheating on taxes either, but just curious about what goes on). What if you just keep the gains and keep quiet?
> What are the tax implications of playing with Bitcoins?
In the US, presumably? It's ever-so-slightly different from other investments. AFAIK it's a real grey area regarding mining. If you mined the coins, maybe those were taxable income then (offset by big capital expenses?), at the market value at that time. I think that's where the differences might end. Now that you have them, plain old capital gains tax likely applies.
> how will the IRS ever find out? ... What if you just keep the gains and keep quiet?
You end up accepting some risk that you don't end up being investigated. Very much of the taxes that you pay that are not part of withholding operate this way. Be honest and have nothing to fear or risk an audit.
"With the exception of some business accounts, Coinbase does not provide 1099 forms. Coinbase does however provide a specialized Cost Basis for Taxes report which will help with filing your taxes." [1]
After this hypothetical transaction you will likely owe capital gains tax. It would be hard to hide any significant amount from the IRS if you actually want to convert it to USD, for example by transferring to a bank account [2]. Regardless, the IRS is definitely paying attention and going after back taxes on large exchange accounts [3].
I always thought the $10,000 reporting rule was for physical cash deposits. Is it also triggered when you, say, transfer $10,000 from your online brokerage account to your checking account?
I believe that this doesn't trigger a mandatory report, however, it would be reasonable to expect that the IRS will ask every major bank for large incoming transactions from e.g. Coinbase, audit every one of those who hasn't listed any capital gains on their tax report, and charge the appropriate taxes+fines. Of course, they don't have to do this now, they'll start next year after everyone has filed their taxes, but they can review it a few years later if they wish.
You risk paying much more than the usual tax if you get caught, and that's if you simply "forget to declare". If it looks like that you've taken explicit steps to hide those gains, then criminal charges may get pressed. IIRC they get some 2000 criminal convictions a year for tax evasion.
Seriously everyone, please stop using bitcoin. The environmental impact of energy generation for mining and proof-of-work is totally untenable. I understand this is key to why Bitcoin works, but we absolutely should not be scaling a technology which so inefficiently uses energy. This is not an argument about the profitability of mining or other technical merits of Bitcoin. Even if all cryptocurrency mining were to use zero-carbon energy generation, we still should not use it: that energy ought to be used for more practical pursuits.
Anyone know of cryptocurrencies which will not blow up our planet's carbon or energy budgets? I've heard of proof-of-stake algorithms, but don't understand that approach very well.
1. Most of the world does not have fully renewable energy, and wasting energy just makes it harder to go full renewable.
2. Gold is used throughout the world for a variety of uses, and has been used as a store of value for years pretty much everywhere. Bitcoin is used to get a few people rich, and is actually used as a store of value pretty much nowhere. They aren't comparable.
Bitcoin has the potential to serve as a subsidy to green energy. A significant amount of wind energy in China, for instance, is simply burned off as waste heat. Over 30% in some cases. This waste happens when there's no demand for the excess energy and no where to store it.
With Bitcoin, such excess energy can be devoted to mining. The bitcoin generated by that mining can then be sold and serve as a subsidy to the green energy producer. This subsidy changes the numbers around green energy and makes it even more profitable, encouraging more such green energy projects to be started.
It's easy to point at proof of work and claim it's a waste. I encourage you to dig deeper, however. Proof of work enables us to radically change the financial system we have today and to potentially make it more efficient.
How do you suggest we get there? Ban unregulated mining farms, only allow them to exist if they have a deal with their local energy producer? It would also require most countries to adopt some sort of treaty.
No one is mining only when demand for energy is low. They're mining 24/7, even probably during peak hours. Even with variable energy pricing, it's still more profitable to keep mining than to let equipment lose value idle. Bitcoin users/miners are externalizing their environmental impact.
Otherwise, perhaps things such as Lighting can help reduce mining requirements, but it's definitely up to cryptocurrencies to find better solutions, not wait for countries to adopt legislation.
I did not say this was a widely adopted use case yet. I'm just pointing out that every green energy producer in the world right now currently burns off excess energy as waste heat. If they move to mining bitcoin instead, they'll actually earn money from that waste electricity.
I agree, but the argument sounds like greenwashing. Sure, it's possible that PoW could be run from green energy, but what's the likelihood of that happening? how do we get there?
I offered some suggestions (ban unregulated large-scale mining, connect farms to specific green grids), but I doubt Bitcoin fans will like them. :)
PoW is the cheapest way to have secure transactions compared to alternatives. It's not energy wasted - this energy ensures the safety of the global financial system, which is a net positive.
I think he meant he expected you to link to something more explicit and objective, such as a scientific survey of the various options, and not that the author of that link should have done better.
If only it were so easy. Environmental concerns will not kill Bitcoin even if they should. Most people will not choose against their own immediate interests in favor of the distant future collective.
> that energy ought to be used for more practical pursuits.
I don't think you or anyone else should get to decide what amounts to practicality of energy consumption. Lots of people burn hydrocarbons all day long so they can live in the burbs and have their own driveway and nice big walk-in closets and not have to take an elevator or stairs up to their apartment.
> Anyone know of cryptocurrencies which will not blow up our planet's carbon or energy budgets? I've heard of proof-of-stake algorithms, but don't understand that approach very well.
They're not trustless, but they are a very interesting approach to the problem. If they indeed are superior, they might supersede bitcoin and other PoW friends at some point. But it's really hard to move past the fact that bitcoin is already "this hard" for folks to understand. Moving beyond it to new coin designs will be an interesting challenge.
Proof-of-stake is discussed in the peercoin whitepaper [1] in plain, understandable language. Best to start there IMO.
We should be actively trying to discourage pointless energy and resource consumption, including people living in the burbs and having huge homes. I’d agree with the idea we shouldn’t be making decisions about how people spend energy if and only if we could price in all externalities related to energy production adequately. This task, I believe, is more or less impossible.
I like how some people support net neutrality for the same reason - I can use my bandwidth for whatever purpose I want. Then how about paying/using my energy for whatever I want? Compared to people who would drive 1 hour per day to work, mining bitcoin isn't remotely comparable. You're just more comfortable with one thing, not the other.
It’s a bubble. If you make money it will only be on the backs of massive losses on the other side, and potentially globally destabilizing / destructive effects.
And art is a totally different market. Largely the players are the richest of the rich, who invest in below 1% of their net worths largely for decorating their castles. Other forms of art have recreational and entertainment and genuine uses.
Even tulips have their utility, Bitcoin too. The question here really is at what price?
> Gold has obvious ornamental and industrial uses.
Which contributes almost nothing to its price.
> And art is a totally different market. Largely the players are the richest of the rich, who invest in below 1% of their net worths largely for decorating their castles.
Other forms of art have recreational and entertainment and genuine uses.
There is medium priced art too and some people buy it as investment. You can also think about people buying collectibles if buying art is something you associate with decorating castles.
What entertainment value has unopened box with plastic spiderman figurine that would justify price of few hundred bucks? It has enteraiment value of me showing you I own it. Bitcoin has the same utility and it also doesn't justify its price.
Value comes from scarcity, durability and transferability.
I guess that most gold in the world in the world must be in women's hands since their appreciation of ornamental purpose is the primary driver of price.
Do you think guys wear golden bracelets and chains because they look pretty?
Art has its uses, gold has its uses, collectibles have their uses and bitcoin has its uses but most of their price comes from scarcity, durability and transferability.
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[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 145 ms ] threadEmail me (see profile) and i'll check it out do send it to you.
BTW anyone knows what is the cryptocurrency with the highest block time?
You can launch your own crypto in a few seconds
If you want that parameter you can just do it
Youll never have a way to contact the next person asking the question so it is unlikely youll be on the list
If you dont use professional tools youll pay 1% on Coinbase
The pretty button tax
Why do you ask? Its as robust and liquid of a market as anything else, up to a few million usd.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/slippage.asp
A quick check right now had 5.2 BTC (~$86k) on either side of the $0.01 spread. Slippage has plummeted as exchange volume has gone up.
It's entirely possible to put $1,000 in, end up with $995 of bitcoin, sell when that doubles to $1,990 and get out $1,980.
Then you have tax :)
I am in Australia but I am able to sell for less than 1% quite easy. I think it's easier for Americans.
Also you shouldn't have to worry about slippage with bitcoin unless you're selling $1,000,000+ in one go.
If you observe the order book orders put in at limit around a volume of $100,000 will fill at the limit within minutes or on lower volume exchanges like the ones in Australia you'll be filled at the limit within a few hours at that size.
(TL;DR: This trick is legit - you just fund your USD / EUR wallet at Coinbase, then use GDAX (their back end exchange) to buy/sell BTC)
At this point the sane people are staying quiet. The madness is in full swing, a large number of fools are desperate to be parted from their money, and there is no point trying to stop them.
Even on Hacker News, there are no comments below saying "this is stupid". Just "how can I throw my money into this pit?" "I'm planning to build an AI algorithm to throw my money into this pit, can anyone advise?" and "if I throw my money in this pit, will it double or triple over the next week?" Good luck, guys.
Sounds like the current state of cryptocurrencies for sure.
The 'sane' people have missed out on some of the best returns in history. There is more there than you think, and everyone should investigate for themselves rather than having a knee-jerk reaction.
Plenty of us believe there's potential in programmable money. Certainly more potential than yet-another-social-media-platform-selling-ads.
You're welcome to dismiss Bitcoin as a bubble. You don't, however, speak for everyone who finds legitimate reasons to get involved.
Janet Yellen recently expressed concern regarding the amount of debt in the economy. Apparently giving out loans at rates less than inflation causes a lot of malinvestment.
Those I know investing in Bitcoin do so because it's the only asset that exists outside the system we have today. It's the escape hatch. The volatility of course concerns us, but we believe in the fundamental ideology and in the long term believe it'll change the world. The monetary policy we have today is, quite frankly, insane.
Cheap debt is given for housing with a mere 10% down becoming quite common, and housing has never been more expensive.
Debt is being used by companies to buy back stocks, and stocks have never been more expensive.
Loans are being given at 0% interest to buy cars, and cars have never been more expensive.
Banks only loan money for the above things because they are backed by, in the banks opinion, collateral.
Which banks are loaning money to buy bitcoin? My position is the amount of debt being used to purchase bitcoin is very small relative to the rest of the economy.
The point is that it is impossible to separate Bitcoin and it's fate from the greater economy. Cheap money fuels bubbles. Last time it was real estate, this time it looks like Bitcoin.
what do you call price of BC going up 16000 fold in 6 years??? the theory was you can buy the same good with the same amount of coin regardless of what dollar is doing, did that happen in practice? no, because no one knows true value of BC because there is no central authority. I am with you on hating the central authority but inflation part didn't work out as it was planned!
Give it time. Bitcoin is a populist movement. Eventually the market will find it’s correct value and volatility will decline (volatility in bitcoin has actually been declining for some time now).
are you for real?
bitcoins were at 700 last year. And its 'value' dropped by 3000 just a few days ago, just to go back up. In what way has it dropped?
I don't think there is a real world example of a country with deflation, so I don't know if the opposite would be true or what real consequences would be, but you can expect the opposite to happen.
lol
Are these actual returns (ie, BTC sold for fiat) or paper returns on an assumption of market depth at current spot?
Serious question. Most bitcoin enthusiasts I know are either still holding their bitcoin, or traded them for other cryptocurrencies. Few have crystallised their gains in fiat.
There are also ATMs and other exchanges to tap. Cashing out a large sum is nearly impossible.
If you have millions worth of BTC, it's better to just auction them off at a discount to a large buyer.
I seriously hope he's aware of the tax implications here. I feel like the IRS is going to be working some serious overtime after this nonsense is over.
Now trying to figure out how to invest the proceeds into stocks. Somehow I doubt I will be able to get another 1000000% RoI over 6 years.
If you have made your case before on HN, post a link and we can discuss it. If not, please make your case.
Then don't? I fail to see why you would care so much about anonymous strangers gambling away their money. We've all heard both sides of the argument countless of times, it's not really worth reiterating "it's a bubble!" "it's not, to the moon!" in every slightly related thread.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-07/deutsche-...
#13 on the list.
...with 10x lower market cap. This is getting out of hand, which is the problem. Complete know-nothings are getting into it now. There are ads on Reddit asking people to invest their IRA in Bitcoin. It's like the whole world has lost its' mind.
Think about it like going to the horse racetrack. Nothing stopping anyone from betting $40 billion on a few horses. Win or lose, a ton of instability will occur once they either need to come up with $40 billion to cover their losses or have someone pay them $40 billion for their winnings.
We saw this prior to the Great Recession, and in the 1929 crash too. I'm ignoring the potential for a bank run to complicate matters, just sticking with counterparty risk which is easy to model.
The skeptic arguments are not especially hard to find or understand. People just get dollar signs and don’t want to hear it.
Edit: oops, sorry, I stand corrected: it was Keynes.
Is it really impossible for you to believe that someone could see value and potential in bitcoin while believing that the current price is not a an accurate representation of it's value?
Maybe they are skeptical of any community that dismisses well-measured criticism with cries of "FUD". Maybe they see bitcoin as cryptocurrency v1.0 but it would be foolish to think that the first implementation of such a technology was the best possible implementation. Maybe they are skeptical of the way many bitcoin-holders seem to prioritize their personal net worth increasing over bitcoin's use as a currency. Maybe they think the future lies in a more extensible platform like Ethereum.
Bitcoin and the blockchain are very interesting technologies full of potential but I don't understand why their proponents seem to take everything so personally.
When the iPod was announced, people frequently commented on purchasing apple stock, or how you can't go wrong purchasing apple. No one was calling apple a bubble when taxi drivers were making those statements.
Sorry for speaking up against people who make baseless bubble claims.
It was John Maynard Keynes.
In the US, presumably? It's ever-so-slightly different from other investments. AFAIK it's a real grey area regarding mining. If you mined the coins, maybe those were taxable income then (offset by big capital expenses?), at the market value at that time. I think that's where the differences might end. Now that you have them, plain old capital gains tax likely applies.
> how will the IRS ever find out? ... What if you just keep the gains and keep quiet?
You end up accepting some risk that you don't end up being investigated. Very much of the taxes that you pay that are not part of withholding operate this way. Be honest and have nothing to fear or risk an audit.
Not usually:
"With the exception of some business accounts, Coinbase does not provide 1099 forms. Coinbase does however provide a specialized Cost Basis for Taxes report which will help with filing your taxes." [1]
After this hypothetical transaction you will likely owe capital gains tax. It would be hard to hide any significant amount from the IRS if you actually want to convert it to USD, for example by transferring to a bank account [2]. Regardless, the IRS is definitely paying attention and going after back taxes on large exchange accounts [3].
[1] https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/149...
[2] https://pocketsense.com/deposits-reported-irs-7557.html
[3] http://fortune.com/2017/11/29/irs-coinbase/
You risk paying much more than the usual tax if you get caught, and that's if you simply "forget to declare". If it looks like that you've taken explicit steps to hide those gains, then criminal charges may get pressed. IIRC they get some 2000 criminal convictions a year for tax evasion.
A few links about the insane amount of energy used for each transaction: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-mi...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-m...
Anyone know of cryptocurrencies which will not blow up our planet's carbon or energy budgets? I've heard of proof-of-stake algorithms, but don't understand that approach very well.
2. https://twitter.com/ponli137/status/939523905039097856
2. Gold is used throughout the world for a variety of uses, and has been used as a store of value for years pretty much everywhere. Bitcoin is used to get a few people rich, and is actually used as a store of value pretty much nowhere. They aren't comparable.
2. Gold has uses other than propping up speculative markets. This is a false equivalence.
With Bitcoin, such excess energy can be devoted to mining. The bitcoin generated by that mining can then be sold and serve as a subsidy to the green energy producer. This subsidy changes the numbers around green energy and makes it even more profitable, encouraging more such green energy projects to be started.
It's easy to point at proof of work and claim it's a waste. I encourage you to dig deeper, however. Proof of work enables us to radically change the financial system we have today and to potentially make it more efficient.
No one is mining only when demand for energy is low. They're mining 24/7, even probably during peak hours. Even with variable energy pricing, it's still more profitable to keep mining than to let equipment lose value idle. Bitcoin users/miners are externalizing their environmental impact.
Otherwise, perhaps things such as Lighting can help reduce mining requirements, but it's definitely up to cryptocurrencies to find better solutions, not wait for countries to adopt legislation.
I offered some suggestions (ban unregulated large-scale mining, connect farms to specific green grids), but I doubt Bitcoin fans will like them. :)
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest
If only it were so easy. Environmental concerns will not kill Bitcoin even if they should. Most people will not choose against their own immediate interests in favor of the distant future collective.
Bitcoin may fail, but it won’t be stopped.
I don't think you or anyone else should get to decide what amounts to practicality of energy consumption. Lots of people burn hydrocarbons all day long so they can live in the burbs and have their own driveway and nice big walk-in closets and not have to take an elevator or stairs up to their apartment.
> Anyone know of cryptocurrencies which will not blow up our planet's carbon or energy budgets? I've heard of proof-of-stake algorithms, but don't understand that approach very well.
They're not trustless, but they are a very interesting approach to the problem. If they indeed are superior, they might supersede bitcoin and other PoW friends at some point. But it's really hard to move past the fact that bitcoin is already "this hard" for folks to understand. Moving beyond it to new coin designs will be an interesting challenge.
Proof-of-stake is discussed in the peercoin whitepaper [1] in plain, understandable language. Best to start there IMO.
[1] https://peercoin.net/assets/paper/peercoin-paper.pdf
Would be a nice comparison.
Bitcoin is stupid.
It’s a bubble. If you make money it will only be on the backs of massive losses on the other side, and potentially globally destabilizing / destructive effects.
And art is a totally different market. Largely the players are the richest of the rich, who invest in below 1% of their net worths largely for decorating their castles. Other forms of art have recreational and entertainment and genuine uses.
Even tulips have their utility, Bitcoin too. The question here really is at what price?
Which contributes almost nothing to its price.
> And art is a totally different market. Largely the players are the richest of the rich, who invest in below 1% of their net worths largely for decorating their castles. Other forms of art have recreational and entertainment and genuine uses.
There is medium priced art too and some people buy it as investment. You can also think about people buying collectibles if buying art is something you associate with decorating castles.
What entertainment value has unopened box with plastic spiderman figurine that would justify price of few hundred bucks? It has enteraiment value of me showing you I own it. Bitcoin has the same utility and it also doesn't justify its price.
Value comes from scarcity, durability and transferability.
Art has its uses. Because we haven't yet automated creativity.
Do you think guys wear golden bracelets and chains because they look pretty?
Art has its uses, gold has its uses, collectibles have their uses and bitcoin has its uses but most of their price comes from scarcity, durability and transferability.
I just put $275 into it. Too bad I didn't think to do that back in October.